Is It Worth The Bucks?

[Ray Z]

I presently cast with Lyman 4 cavity molds. Is it worth a thousand dollars to buy the master caster jr and will I get more casts per hour out of it? Or should I just stick with the casting with the molds I've got?

[Wayne Smith]

It all depends on the volume you need. If you are in business or shooting thousands of boolits, than yes. Otherwise, you need to balance the cost vs the convenience to you. Only you can answer that question.

[Ray Z]

Will I get more casts per hour?

[deltaenterprizes]

The Master Caster will do about 500 38 cal boolits per hour, bigger sizes produce a slower rate. smaller designs the rate goes up.

[bobthenailer]

IMO thats actually alot slower than i can cast with my saeco 4 cavity mould im in the 750 to 900 per hour range , useing only one mould & hand casting , larger moulds make a bit less . but even a 2 cavity mould and hand casting I can make around 400 to 500 per hour.
I personaly dont see any advantage useing the Master Caster ! spend some of that money on a Star/Magnama lube/sizer , if you dont allready have one! it will cut youre lube/sizing time in half or more , 1000 bullets a hour is fairly easy to obtain after some pratice,
You may want to get some casting tips from this fourm to speed up your production !

[Mk42gunner]

Ray,

Far be it for me to tell someone not to buy more toys; but for me it isn't worth spending $1000 to increase production. I cast for relaxation, and to save a little money when I shoot. Some guns and calibers I like to play with and try different boolits and loads; with other guns (some of the same caliber) I work up one load for it and that is it.

Since I have more time than money right now, I am well satisfied by hand casting. I get plenty of boolits casting until my back starts hurting with molds with from one to six cavities.

Robert

[ReloaderFred]

I've been casting since about 1968, starting with a single cavity Lyman mold and dipper. Now I've got pretty close to 60 or 70 molds, from single cavity to 10 cavity. I hardly ever use any of those molds anymore, nor the 10 pound and 20 pound bottom pour pots I've got.

Now I use a Master Caster almost exclusively, and have 23 molds for it. My wife and I go through thousands of cast bullets per year and the only way I can keep up is to use the Master Caster.

The casting rates given above are pretty much the norm. I can cast an average of 500 .38 bullets an hour, and about 350 .45 Colt bullets per hour. The difference is I can easily sit at my Master Caster for an 8 hour casting session and not feel like I've been in a fight with a wolverine at the end. Hand casting just wears me out, and makes my old arms and hands sore, but the Master Caster doesn't. If someone came here tomorrow and offered me full retail price for my Master Caster, I'd run them off with a baseball bat.

For me, the machine is worth every penny, due to the volume of shooting we do. It casts good bullets at a fair rate, but doesn't beat me up in the process. Others may disagree, but you asked for opinions, so this is mine.

Hope this helps.

Fred

[bryonbush]

reloaderfred: who makes a ten cavity mold? also, if you dont use your 20lbs pots no more, willing to sell one to my wife so she can buy it and give it to me for christmas?

[Bret4207]

Bryon, H+G made 10 cavs.

I can do close to 200 an hour with a single cav if I concentrate. I can do 400ish with a 2 cav and 5-600 easily with a good 6 banger. All this with a large 40 lbs pot and good ladle. If you aren't getting at least 3-5 fillings a minute with a hand held mould...well, you have a problem. I don't know what it is about Mastercasters and the like that really appeal to people. I can only reason that they didn't like casting in the first place, which is fine, and the MC is a means to an end- lots of cast boolits with little effort on their part. I see no issue with anyone using one from a standpoint of ease. But for sheer high quality production I don't see any machine beating a guy with a big pot and a large gang mould. 600 an hour with a 10 cav H+g is a snapper, I did closer to 1K last run I did. All this assumes you have the moulds figured out ahead of time, and that goes for the machines too.

[deltaenterprizes]

"The difference is I can easily sit at my Master Caster for an 8 hour casting session and not feel like I've been in a fight with a wolverine at the end. Hand casting just wears me out, and makes my old arms and hands sore, but the Master Caster doesn't." quote from ReloaderFred

I think this is why in a nutshell.

I have had mine for than 25years and still hand cast. The ease of use has gotten more than a few reloaders into casting and loading their own boolist.

I only paid $500 for mine around 1985.

[Springfield]

I can do 800/hr with one 6 cav and 1200 when I run 2 at a time. So the Master Caster would not be faster for me. But I certainly can't keep that up for 8 hours. The problem with switching over to a MC is all of your 4 and 6 cavity moulds and all your aluminum moulds will not work, so now you need all new moulds. So unless it is a physical problem keeping you from casting I don't see the need. Now if you were just starting out and don't have many moulds or only cast a lot of a few different bullets it might make sense.

[Ray Z]

Thanks everybody for your input. When I cast with my 4 cavity molds I usually cast around 500 per hour. I'm retired, so I don't have to spend marathon sessions at the casting table. I've got the big Lyman pot,so when it runs out I can take a break while waiting for it to heat back up.
Thanks again
Ray

[mdi]

Wow! You guys sure can put out some boolits! I don't do anywhere near that. I don't have an actual count of BPH, I just cast until either I'm tired, the pile is big enough, or the fun is waning...

[Ray Z]

My problem is that I've got a habit to feed. It's called practical pistol. I love the sport. And I love making the ammo to use in it.

[Moonman]

I've been studying this issue, and it looks to me that if you can afford it, the Master Caster, or the even more expensive manual caster from Ballisti-Cast the Mark IV will save wear and tear on old body parts such as your wrists and shoulders. Save em' for SHOOTIN'. Ballisti-Cast now owns the RIGHTS and the CHERRIES to the H&G MOLDS. They are producing machines and molds, along with the new owner soliciting advice from this forums membership for design changes to machines and things.:lovebooli

[Char-Gar]

It would never be worth it to me.

[Reload3006]

my take on it is this. if you look at like its just a casting machine. to you its probably not worth it. Like for me and my swaging gear. But if you go and watch those things go on Ebay .. you can look at it like more of an investment. I know that I can get more for my swaging gear than I paid new for it.

[BossHoss]

The ease of use, is the only draw for me, in regards to a Master Caster.

I can get a groove going with any of my molds...right now .

The MC may be the way to go , down the road , as body parts ache more.

I like the fully automated one on you tube....now THAT is the cat's whiskers...just building it would be fun. too cool, pid, autofill, shakers, ....the works...just too cool.

[cbrick]

My problem is that I've got a habit to feed. It's called practical pistol. I love the sport. And I love making the ammo to use in it.

I highly recommend getting the Star with both a heater (or make a heater) and the air pressure system. It is still one at a time but once set up you can run hundreds an hour through it.

I've never used the bullet feeder but a lot at one sitting for me is a few hundred, if you do enough it may be worthwhile for you.

Rick

[casterofboolits]

I have three Mastercasters and run them in series. I can still beat them using two four cavity Lyman moulds.

The Mastercasters and Magma moulds make good boolits with in a few casts tho.

[Lee W]

I can run a Saeco 4 cavity about one cycle every nine seconds. At that pace I could get 1200+ per hour. I felt it for several days after.

I stopped casting like that since it was not enjoyable anymore. Last year I did not cast more than 1000 boolits total.

I decided to get the Master Caster to see if I could cast without pain. It has done so well for me and the aches and pains, I have cast over 16,000 boolits and it is not even December yet!
Not having the pain is worth the cost to me and the extra time is not an issue. A good trade in my mind.

[Bret4207]

I guess if you hurt after casting a machine might be a way to go. I'm very happy to report I've never felt any pains after casting for long sessions other than using the 10 Cav H+G, and even then that was just a matter setting up a better rest to set it on.

I don't recall who mentioned it, but while Magma may have the rights to the H+G name, they don't produce H+G moulds!

[biscot]

I run my MasterCaster at 650 deg with a digital control, and cast about 900 9mm per hour, easily. About the same as I can do with a 6-cav Lee mold, but certainly no faster. No real advantage there, but since I only shoot 9mm and shoot a lot of them in IPSC and IDPA, I just like using it - pride of ownership as much as anything, plus the boolits are very consistent and no rejects. I was just starting out so I didn't have a bunch of molds already.
If I were doing a lot of calibers, or just looking for a speed advantage, I don't think it would be worth it, especially if I already had a lot of molds.
That said, it's a great piece of gear and I'd never part with mine.

[Ray Z]

Yeah, that's the other problem. I've got 2 50 caliber ammo cans full of Lyman 4 cavity molds. I'd hate to have to start over buying molds.

[Springfield]

When I get older I may go with something like this. I used to ride my motorcycle all over, but now I have 2 kids and so I bought a sidecar for all of us to get around in. Not a motorcycle, but lots of fun and more practical for my current situation. I'm just glad we all have options for what we need to do, not all countries are like that. I was down in Arizona last week visiting family and stopped in at Magma. Nice guys, pretty busy even though it was the day before Thankgiving. They tried to convince me I needed the next step up from the Master Caster, but it was 11,000! Nice machine though. And they did give me a schematic and instructions so that I can switch my 40 lb pot to 220 instead of the 110 it is now. Won't work any better but it will be easier on my house wiring. They are a nice all American company, had an antelope head on the wall and gun magazines all over the lobby. We talked about some changes I had done to my Star sizers that I thought they might offer, like 2 piece punches.

[garym1a2]

For me the biggest gain is speed was going from 2up molds to the lee 6up. My latest choke point is the RCBS LAM I use. I would follow the suggestion on the Star machine if I could find a used one for a good price.

for me I always try to find my slowest point in the process and speed it up.


I highly recommend getting the Star with both a heater (or make a heater) and the air pressure system. It is still one at a time but once set up you can run hundreds an hour through it.

I've never used the bullet feeder but a lot at one sitting for me is a few hundred, if you do enough it may be worthwhile for you.

Rick

[Sonnypie]

Looks kind fun to me!

Master Caster Video (http://youtu.be/JyXGQp0oolQ)

Not for me though.
I'm way too low a volume for that. [smilie=1:

[fredj338]

As the other guys noted, it's not faster than a 6cav, maybe a bit faster than a 4cav. I can do 600/hr in 45s, maybe 700 in 9mm. The upside is you can cast as long as you can pull the handle w/o fatigue. Now if I can just get mine flowing again. Magma has been absent from my inquiries.:sad:

[trench]

I can size and lube the bullets cast from the 100 lb pot (ladle dip) with a Star almost as fast as the plumber's furnace can melt another batch of lead, using multiple 6 cavity Lee molds. I"ve turned out 5000 finished bullets in 7 hours before, altho not counting the startup melt and cleanup time. So, no, you dont need the mastercaster to be commerically capable, even.

[BD]

I paid $500 for mine, used ,with more than 20 molds in the deal.

I can cast 50% more boolits in an hour using two Lee 6 cavities in rotation than I can with the two cavity mold in my master caster. I can cast more boolits in a four hour session using the 2 Lee six cav's than I can with the master caster, but I'll be beat at the end of the afternoon.

Any more long term than that and the master caster wins hands down every time.

I can cast more boolits per week using the master caster than any combination of any hand cast molds. I could push this for a week maybe, but I'd have to quit my job or get a divorce to keep up hand casting for two weeks.

There is no way, no how, I could cast as many boolits over the course of a year by hand as I can cast with the Master Caster. If you're into production for something like IDPA ,where you're casting a thousand of the same design per week, it's just too easy. You get home from work, turn it on, sit down and eat dinner and then go cast 500 for an hour, turn it off and go back inside with your wife. Once it's set up there is no prep time, and nearly no clean up time. It's easy to cast 1,000 boolits a week without taking an afternoon off to do it.

Using the Master caster it's the lubesizing, and loading, thats hard to keep up with. You need to pick each one up and place it, and you can't reload the lube, or primer tube, without stopping the process. I never got around to adding air to my star and 400 an hour is about the max I can size, in part because this is when I take a close look at each boolit. Looking at loading realistically, I can load about 300/hr taking into account dealing with the primers and powder. When I was shooting more competitively the master caster kept me in boolits for the .45 acp without my having to "make time" to get them cast.

They still need to be sized and loaded. At my best, I figure I had an hour in every hundred rounds I shot between gathering the lead, smelting, casting them, sizing them, loading them and putting them in boxes.

In my simplistic way of looking at things, 100 rounds of .45 acp cost me $3.00 in components and an hour of my time. If I'd been working hourly, I suppose I could of just worked another 5 hours of OT a week and bought ammo at the store. But then I'd be someone else, wouldn't I?

BD

[Ray Z]

I absolutely love new toys. But I have to justify the cost. $1000 is a lot of money. It looks like I'm going to be using the boatload of Lyman 4 cavity molds I've already got. Thanks for the feedback everybody.

[imashooter2]

I generally fill Lee 6 cavity molds on a ~40 second cycle and I'll run for 2 hours or so before I'm tired and ready to stop. That's a bit more than 1K per session. Eight or ten sessions between December and March and I'm GTG on my highest usage .38 and .45 "standard" boolits. The rifle and low volume stuff gets cast from mostly 2 cavity molds here and there whenever I need more.

So for my needs, hand casting works fine. If I doubled that requirement then a machine would start to look better and better...

[Roundnoser]

Well, look at it this way....if you have the cash up front to buy the MC and end up deciding that you don't like it or need it, you could sell it almost anywhere (we get first dibs!!!!), and make nearly all of your money back! -- Just a thought

[BruceB]

I'd not only say "NO", but" H*LL NO", it's not worth it. For a commercial bullet-casting operation, yes, but for personal use?

With my Lyman 4-cavity moulds I can easily cast 800 (and more) bullets per hour. Who among us NEEDS more than that? This is a practical and maintainable rate, and even at my advanced years I can "do it" for several hours at a stretch if needed. Even my 2-cavity moulds will yield in excess of 400 bullets per hour.

The $1000 is better-spent on other equipment....like more and different moulds.